Taiwan’s chief financial regulator has resigned in the wake of a three-day run on a private bank, following the sudden collapse of its parent conglomerate and the flight of its founder to China.

Sungard/Trade Tech report finds mixed views on MiFID benefits while CreditSights study reveals M&A fillip of IFRS.

In a new year's resolution, Australian prime minister John Howard, who refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, has charged a taskforce with finding a global emission trading system that the country would find acceptable.

After eight years since their first talks, Bank of New York and Mellon Financial have finally decided to tie the knot. The deal, technically a merger, would create the world’s largest custodians of financial assets and a leading asset management firm.

Transparency International index cites poorest as most corrupt while Armstrong analyses European investment banking.

This year The Banker Country Award winners for Guinea and Ghana are both called International Commercial Bank (ICB) and both are subsidiaries of an emerging markets banking group that now spans three continents. The main shareholders are a group of Malaysian investors.

The Dubai International Financial Centre’s (DIFC) strategy to promote young and talented individuals to prominent roles has this month resulted in the appointment of Nasser Mohammed bin Hussein Alshaali as chief executive officer of the DIFC Authority, one of the centre’s main bodies.

Danske Bank, Denmark’s largest bank, last week acquired Finland’s third largest bank, Sampo Bank, for DKr30.1bn (€4bn), a deal that Sampo Group’s chief executive Björn Wahlroos says was simply too tempting to turn down. The acquisition is still subject to the approval of the relevant authorities but the go-ahead is expected early in 2007.

Ernst & Young finds a wide range of outcomes from the impact of IFRS on Europe’s big banks, and Aite Group reports on the rise of online bill payments and the new opportunties it presents.